Author
Topic: Orthodox devotionalism? (Read 1724 times)

How do you as EO's and OO's start your morning? How do you end your day? I often pray some sort of divine office, after praying various devotional prayers, for example, consecrating myself to Mary, the Morning Offering, etc. I often visit the Sacrament and on occasion pray the Rosary at the local Adoration Chapel. For night I give myself to the Holy Family, examine my conscience, make an act of contrition, etc. Don't be fooled though...These are the devotions I aspire to. I am often lax in my prayers.

The traditional and ancient Coptic Orthodox Daily Hours are at www.agpeya.org. I'll try to pray Prime and Compline, I know some more devout Copts who pray more hours. At the moment I am personally using the Sarum Rite Diurnal, and in the past, before I became Orthodox, I used EO daily prayers, and even before that I used the Anglican Society of St Frances Daily Office book.

Like you I am an aspirant, although I find that the Jesus Prayer comes often into my mind and sometimes I wake in the night with the prayer going on. I find that many times I pray the Jesus Prayer driving to work in the morning. I need to memorise a couple of the offices.

First, there is a standard -- more or less -- set of private morning and evening prayers. The Jordanville Prayer has them in a fairly full version according to the Russian usage but the Greek usage, while shorter, is nonetheless very similar.

Alternatively, one could pray the daily offices -- most likely in an abbreviated format and there have been many abbreviated formats published -- matins and vespers, together with a set of bedtime prayers/compline.

A popular Orthodox devotion is, of course, the Jesus prayer. Some devout Orthodox pray this with the use of a chotki, or fabric prayer rope to help them focus. I would say that this is probably the most popular Orthodox "devotion".

Another practice that is not strictly devotional is to venerate the icons daily -- there are numerous Orthodox who do this. Also some Orthodox light candles or burn incense while they are at prayer or praying the Jesus Prayer in order to help focus.

Having said all of that, there are many Orthodox who don't pray very much at all (as in any other religious group), even among the church-going Orthodox. It is an issue with us as it is with anyone else.